Oakland pot candy maker pleads guilty

OAKLAND

Published 4:00 am, Friday, March 28, 2008

The owner of an Oakland factory that produced marijuana candy with names like Buddafinga and Mr. Greenbud has pleaded guilty to conspiring to manufacture and distribute marijuana.

Michael Martin, 33, of El Sobrante entered a guilty plea at a hearing Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Oakland. He is scheduled to be sentenced July 2 by Judge Claudia Wilken.

Martin is the owner of Tainted Inc., which started as a boutique business that made chocolate truffles and grew into a large marijuana-candy maker that bought chocolate by the ton, authorities said.

Tainted Inc. employee Jessica Sanders has been charged with illegally using a phone to distribute marijuana, a felony, while employees Michael Anderson and Diallo McLinn - the son of longtime Berkeley activist Osha Neumann - were each charged with a misdemeanor count of marijuana possession.

Authorities said Tainted made candies with names that played off popular legal treats: Budda- finga, Mr. Greenbud, Stoners. The business also made pot-laced items such as cookies, ice cream, peanut butter, granola bars and barbecue sauce, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

When the federal government charged Tainted Inc.'s owner and employees in September, authorities said the company supplied the marijuana-laced candies to cannabis clubs in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver, British Columbia and Amsterdam.

Before surrendering to face the charges in October, Martin blasted the U.S. government for what he called an unfair attack by federal bullies on ailing patients who rely on medical marijuana.

Martin said he joined the medical-marijuana movement after seeing his father die painfully of prostate cancer in 2002 after a 10-year battle. His father refused to use marijuana because of a federal ban on all types of the drug. Martin said he uses medical marijuana to ease pain after a fall left him with seven screws and a steel plate in his left heel. He said he also has degenerative cartilage in his right knee.

In September, federal agents raided his factory on the 900 block of 61st Street in North Oakland and a building on the 300 block of 40th Street where marijuana was grown.

The investigation bears similarities to DEA raids in Oakland in 2006 in which five people connected with a company called Beyond Bomb were convicted of making marijuana-laced treats with names like Munchy Way, Rasta Reece's and Puff-a-Mint Pattie.

In federal marijuana cases, defense attorneys are barred from telling jurors that companies supply medical cannabis products through licensed dispensaries to qualified patients. Proposition 215, the initiative approved in 1996 by state voters, legalized growing and using marijuana for medical purposes with a doctor's recommendation. Under federal law, marijuana used for any purpose is illegal.